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By Root 3701 0

By their soft, gleaming light he saw walls painted with riotous patterns of plants, winding around each other like snakes, and with dancing animals –in reds, ochres, greens. No mirrors reflected the light, but everywhere hung icons that glimmered sadly with gold. There was little of the furniture that would have been found in an English palace: only plain chairs and benches, great studded trunks and huge stoves; but rich oriental carpets and hangings of silk and brocade more than compensated. It was a noble palace. And yet … And yet there was something else that made him fearful. It was a feeling of heaviness, of dark power. In this church-like gloom, the painted passages seemed to Wilson like tunnels, the chambers like halls in a labyrinth. As they went in, further and further, it made him think of something deep, subterranean, like a womb where a man might hide; and who knew what other passages, what chambers there might be, behind thick walls that would muffle any cry? He was glad when they came out.

Life for the English merchants was sunny, though. They were in the Tsar’s favour. Nor did it take them long to get to know the huge market into which they had accidentally come.

For Moscow, with its great fairs upon the ice, was a huge emporium. From the east, up the Volga and the Don, came cotton, sheep, spices. Each year, the Nogay tribesmen from the Asian steppe arrived with huge herds of horses. From Novgorod came iron, silver, salt; from other cities leather, oil, grain, honey and wax.

‘The opportunities are endless,’ Chancellor said excitedly.

Although Russia was rich in these raw materials, except for the arms she made, she had few manufactured goods. Wilson could think of any number of luxury items he could sell here. They could use a good English broadcloth, too, he considered. As for the return voyage home: This wax is no cheaper than I can buy in England, he calculated, but their furs … He could get a fortune for those furs.

Despite their powerful, burly appearance, his own shrewd intelligence soon detected that the big Russian merchants were essentially passive.

‘They only know their own country,’ he remarked to Chancellor. ‘In a way, they are like eager children.’

‘I agree,’ the leader replied, ‘but, remember, our first customer is the Tsar himself.’

For, they had quickly discovered, the Tsar had the monopoly of many of the chief goods in the market, including liquor. Every drop of vodka sold to the eager people at the little drinking booths belonged to him. All sables, all raw silk, all grain for export, was in the hands of his agents. And foreign merchants like themselves had to offer all their goods to him first.

Such was the all-pervading power of the centralized Muscovite state.

‘The Tsar wants chemicals, too, for explosives,’ Chancellor told him, ‘and he wants us to bring him men of learning. I have already promised to come again with doctors and men skilled in mining.’

At first some of these requests puzzled Wilson. He had already made the acquaintance of several German merchants who were allowed to reside in the city. He had seen there was a German doctor, too. Why, he wondered, should the Tsar want men from distant England when others could be found closer to his borders?

It was one of the Germans, a large, burly man who spoke some English, who explained it to him.

‘About six years ago, my friend, a German fellow offered to bring the Tsar all kinds of experts. He collected more than a hundred and brought them to the Baltic ports. If he’d got them into Muscovy, I dare say the Tsar would have made him a rich man indeed.’

‘And why didn’t they get here?’

The German grinned.

‘They were stopped, that’s why. Arrested by the authorities.’ He looked at Wilson seriously. ‘And the highest powers were behind it – the very highest.’

‘Because?’

‘Do you suppose, my friend, that the Livonian Order, which controls many of the Baltic ports, is anxious to strengthen Ivan’s hand? He’s longing to walk in there and take over those Latvian and Estonian lands. Do you think Lithuania and Poland, or the Emperor